INTRODUCTION

The famous Ultimatum had gone forth to the world.  War had come at last.  We, in Kimberley, were in for it—­though happily unconscious of our destiny until it was revealed by the gradations of time.  Nothing awful was anticipated.  The future was veiled.  The knowledge of what was to come was brought home to us by a gradual process that kept us permanently sane.  Dull Kimberley was to be enlivened in a manner that made us wish it were dull again.  We felt it from the first—­the sense of imprisonment—­the deprivation of liberty.  But that was all, we thought—­all that we should be called to endure.  Nobody could leave Kimberley for a little while; it was awkward, certainly; but nothing more.  How long would the Siege last?  “About a week” was a favoured illusion; until reflective minds put our period of probation at a fortnight.  But the higher critics shook their heads, and added—­another seven days.  Three weeks was made the maximum by general, dogmatic consent.  Nobody ventured beyond it; in fact, nobody dared to.  Suspicion would be apt to fall upon the man who suggested a month.  Feeling ran high, and as we all felt the limits of our confinement narrow enough already, we entertained no wish to have them made narrower still, by knocking our heads against the stone walls of the gaol.  Not then.  There came a time, alas! when we reflected with a sigh upon the probability of our rations being more regular and assured if we broke a window, or the law in some way, and gave ourselves up.  For the nonce, however, three weeks would pass, and with them all our woes.  The idea of eighteen weeks occurred to nobody; it would have been too farcical, too puerile.  That starvation must have killed us long ere the period had fled, would have been our axiom, if it were pertinent to the issue, when the ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ of the situation were being eagerly discussed on the opening days of a Siege that was to send the fame of the Diamond City farther than ever did its diamonds.  A few weeks would terminate the trouble; and if, in the interim, we ran short of trifles, like salt or pepper, well—­we would bear it for sake of the Flag.  Kimberley is a British stronghold, with a loyal population imbued with a fine sense of the invincibility of the British army.  Many people were surprised to find that they could descant sincerely and patriotically upon the might and glories of the Empire.  Even the Irish Nationalist seemed to feel that it took a nation upon whose territory the sun itself could not set to subjugate his native land; and he was moved to remind his Anglo-Saxon mates that the absent-minded beggars of the Emerald Isle had contributed to the promotion of daytime all night.